


Sleepless

by Rens_Knight



Series: In the Burning of the Light [15]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-09 17:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12893397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rens_Knight/pseuds/Rens_Knight
Summary: The threat of the Dread Masters has brought a temporary truce between sworn enemies, and an elite strike force consisting of Darth Imperius (Tarssus Kallig), Ashara Zavros, Jedi Master Iru Lhis, and Kira Carsen has just come together and destroyed the threat.The nightmarish plague of terror may be over, but there are other battles still to be fought--those that originate entirely from within.





	Sleepless

_You...are an enigma.  
  
You exist here, and yet you also live elsewhere. Styrak is lost to us--but you, who are called the Master of the Dead, are not. Within you lies a bridge between two worlds. With you as the bridge, we will become whole once more.  
  
We have tasted a whisper of your fears and sensed them realized in the Apprentice. You shall see all hope of the true consummation of your love stripped from you piece by piece. You shall see your family descend into glorious contortions of utter madness. And you shall see all your hopes destroyed and reshaped into our image, knowing that all of this has been enabled through your own power.  
  
And with all hope destroyed, it shall be you who surrenders. It shall be you who becomes the destroyed turned destroyer.  
  
Imperius--FEAR...!_  
  
  
  
I woke in a cold sweat, barely suppressing the scream that wanted to rip forth from my throat, to behold the amber light of a foreign dawn that streamed in through the open door flap of the command tent...Oricon.  
  
Once more, I silently cursed the Imperial Intelligence agent believed to be the one who had released the Dread Masters from their imprisonment on Belsavis. Then I cursed the Republic fools who had once captured the Dread Masters, had them at their mercy, yet refused to slay them to permanently end the threat. Now we of the Empire and the Republic both had been forced to clean up their awful mess--and at such a price!  
  
Ashara and I were still at our base camp on Oricon, where we along with a strike team sent by the Republic had finally neutralized the threat of the Dread Masters themselves. Where I had commanded Lord Hargrev to see to the destruction of the technology the rogue Lords had used to extend their projections of terror across the far reaches of space. And where members of the Dread Host still roamed, their minds horribly distorted by the Dread Masters to the point that they _still_ fought fanatically on the behalf of their slain masters. No method had been found to undo the atrocities that the Dread Masters had wrought upon their minds, leaving only one solution.  
  
That was why Ashara and I had stayed--to help the exhausted Imperial strike force, the Dread Executioners, to deal with the remnants of the crisis, especially with Lord Hargrev recovering from his sleepless weeks spent shielding his people from the insanity of the Dread Masters' visions. He had drawn upon the power of the Force to keep his body and mind functioning but now it had all caught up and while the man recuperated, he could barely be stirred from sleep except to take meals. Though all we both wanted was to be done with this cursed place forever, neither of us was willing to abandon our people. We, who had been comparatively late to arrive on Oricon, were still strong...  
  
Except when I slept. And then my memories of the hellish visions the Dread Masters had projected into my mind resurfaced in my dreams. It was worse for Ashara, I knew. The part of me that existed in the beyond had served me as an anchor, providing me safe harbor from the worst of their mental assaults. Ashara had not had that benefit. There was great strength in my beloved, of course...but she had caught the worse of it, and suffered accordingly.  
  
It was she who had already opened the tent's door flap, and stood with her back to me in front of the entrance, contemplating the tormented landscape. As soon as she heard me slip out of the bedroll and smooth out my robes, which I had fallen asleep in the night before, she dipped her head so her montrals wouldn't scrape against the top of the entryway, and rejoined me inside.  
  
I could see from the greyish shadows beneath the snow-white skin of her eyes that her sleep too had been fitful at best, even though she had also been so exhausted as to fall asleep in her robes. Still, a smile played across her lips as she drew closer to me. "Rough dreams, Tarssus?" she asked, though I had a feeling she already knew.  
  
I nodded, and she met my eyes with a look that spoke not of a condescending one-sided pity, but of honest commiseration.  
  
"Me too," Ashara said. "I kept waking up--kept trying to meditate it all away, kept trying to tell myself it was all an illusion. Meaningless. But it keeps happening. And I keep remembering everything I learned as a Padawan about fear as the path to the Dark Side. The Dread Masters embodied all of that. And _that's_ what they wanted to do to the whole galaxy. Starting with us. With _me_."  
  
"And yet you're still here," I gently replied, feeling a touch of warmth in the air as I spoke the words. "And you're still yourself. I would tell you that fear is only the path to the Dark Side if you waste all your energy running from it, instead of learning to work _through_ it. And I'm sure that somewhere else, on board the _Fury_ , away from Oricon, I'll feel that again. Right now, though...the only thing I know for certain to tell you is that I'm here. And I'll listen, if you want to talk about it."  
  
Though she sat down at my side, leaving only a few centimeters between us, still she stared off into the distance, keeping her own counsel. I closed my eyes, letting myself focus on the immediacy of her presence--the warmth in the air, the current in the Force--which in itself offered some salve upon my soul. I willed that she might feel something of the same.  
  
Ashara closed her eyes next to me, withdrawing into some sort of meditation. I wished she would relinquish the Jedi ritual--the emptying of self, the banishment of feeling. I hoped that in my presence I might offer _something_ more meaningful than that. Something she might find at least a bit steadying. Something that was at least _real_. Still, it was not for me to command, even and _especially_ now.  
  
Suddenly, after several minutes of sitting next to each other in the tent, her deep inside her trance and me staring out the door flap at the barren Oriconian landscape, Ashara's eyes flew open and she turned to me and whispered, "Can you feel it?"  
  
I took stock of the battlefield through the Force. "I can feel the casualties," I reported even though somehow I doubted this was the answer she was looking for. It helped me nonetheless, to put words to it. "There are so many. And I can feel how they died, consumed with terror. There's an undercurrent to it, something that I _hope_ is relief, that as they separated from their physical bodies whatever the Dread Masters were doing held no more sway over them. I want to believe that, that they were all freed, that no one will end up bound to Oricon by this. It was terrible."  
  
"I'm sorry," Ashara murmured. "Being in a war zone...it must be hell for you. Death comes as a shock through the Force for me--but it fades almost as fast. It takes a lot longer for you, doesn't it?"  
  
I squeezed the former Jedi's hand as I nodded. "It does. There are different kinds of deaths, and spirits, just as there are different sorts of people among the living. There is a difference when someone parts with the world with the feeling that they've done what they came for and they're ready to move on, and when someone has his life stolen from him before his time. Or when he dies in misery or terror. A place that's in balance...there's a feeling of accomplishment about it. Satisfaction. Each generation built one on top of the other. I know how strange it must seem to you--maybe even wrong--but to me, that sort of feeling is natural and reassuring. But the _other_ deaths--the sudden ones, the unjust ones, and the echo of their anguish--it takes those even longer to fade than the gentler ones do for me. At home on Dromund Fels...I didn't understand it at the time, but I could feel it on the estate, where slaves had been beaten or violated to death, decades after it happened. It's a fault line. A wound. And _this_ place is bleeding all over."  
  
"It must be terrible..." No more words were needed. I knew.  
  
Ashara closed her eyes, allowing herself to slip into a restless sort of meditation once more. Then, after several moments of silent contemplation, she curled her arm around my shoulders, pulled me tight against her side. "How about now...can you feel what _I_ feel?"  
  
I closed my own eyes as we leaned into each other. What I ordinarily only knew through my physical sight, and shadows in the Force, aside from the beautiful beacon that was my beloved Ashara and the cooler, fainter, but eminently steady glow I would have felt aboard ship, that represented the presence of my brother Talos, blossomed into vivid reality.  
  
At the same time as my own world shifted, I felt Ashara shudder. I reached over and draped my own arm over her shoulders, gently stroking her arm. I knew the choice she had made: just as her world unfolded for me, so did mine for her. Me...a Sith Lord with blood on his hands, who communed with the dead more easily than with the living...she had chosen me, and _still_ she chose me, knowing that would be the price.  
  
I could have lingered there forever, my entire being basking in the warmth of her presence--but I dared not while we remained on Oricon. Not while my relief meant her unease. Instead, I allowed my inward senses to be directed by her attentions, to move outward across the vast battlefield until...there. Fear--but this time not the ravenous sort the Dread Masters had wielded. It was powerful, yes, but turned inward upon itself. Aimlessness. Despair. Longing for...something. Simply to _be_ once more.  
  
I pulled away from Ashara, and though she tried to hide it, I could still hear the sigh of relief, to be rid of my world of the dead. And yet...that was _exactly_ what the presence I sensed through her had felt like to me. "That was like being in the Dark Temple, before it was destroyed," I said to Ashara. "All the restless spirits wandering the place, trying to find some sort of foothold in the world again...that's what it reminds me of, except I'm assuming that's alive, or else I would have picked up on a Force ghost that powerful well before now."  
  
"It's alive all right, although in _that_ kind of state," Ashara glumly noted, "I don't know how much longer that's going to last."  
  
I winced. In my brief time on Oricon I had seen Imperial officers driven to such horrific heights of madness by the ravages of the Dread Masters that even with Lord Hargrev trying to hold off the telepathic assaults, they had taken their own lives or committed a more indirect sort of suicide at the weapons of their comrades. That was the reason I had not brought Talos anywhere near the place--strong-willed as the man was, he was unequipped to fight back in the Force against the Dread Masters as Ashara and I were.  
  
Released from the grip of the Dread Masters' terror, however, most of our officers and soldiers had made marked improvements and were on the road to recovery, returning to themselves though with horrid nightmares they would never entirely forget. Though I had found it odd at first, Lieutenant Aiduana, the woman who led their recuperation had confessed to Ashara--who had relayed it for me to hold in total confidence--was an officer who had been tasked to work with Lord Hargrev and had suffered immensely under him. That was before they came to Oricon and the depravity of the Dread Masters caused Hargrev to be wracked by the echoes of his own torments. But that did not erase the pain of what he had done from Aiduana's mind.  
  
For Lieutenant Aiduana had fought her own daily battle against terror before Oricon, forced as she was every day to come into the presence of the man who abused her thus, and to betray no hint of the fear that wracked her body and soul lest he add to her suffering in retaliation for the display he would brand as weakness and disloyalty. To consider her situation from the outside, one might have imagined her the first to surrender to the ravages of the Dread Masters' power. Yet of those without the Force, she had proved instead the strongest of them all--perhaps because for her, there was nothing that the Dread Masters could evoke that her own reality had not already matched.  
  
There was nothing I could do to bring true justice for Aiduana now as I had against Overseer Harkun the day I returned to the Academy. Not with the influence Lord Hargrev would now gain for his success on this campaign in the eyes of Darth Rictus, to whose Sphere I believed Hargrev belonged although no Sith Lord of the Sphere of Mysteries save the Councillor himself, would ever admit publicly to being a member. I could not afford to earn Rictus' wrath for this, much as I longed to do more.  
  
And when it came to redressing the wrongs done to Aiduana...there was also the matter of the change that had come over Hargrev himself. Because of this, I made no mention when I spoke to the man of what I had learnt of Aiduana's strength. Still, I had approached Hargrev with an offer in the immediate aftermath of our enemies' defeat, saying, _Her fortitude in the face of the Dread Masters is truly admirable. I've no doubt Moff Chairos and my advisor Talos Drellik would be equally impressed. If you and Darth Rictus would have it, her strength and her experience in the field would prove an excellent fit for the Imperial Reclamation Service._  
  
Ordinarily a Sith Lord of another Sphere would have resisted the encroachment of one of his master's rivals on the Council, or at least given his master the opportunity to do so. Instead, Hargrev had simply nodded and replied, _I'll notify Lieutenant Aiduana of the offer at my soonest liberty._ I could sense little from him. But I had the distinct impression from the hollowness in Hargrev's voice that he knew full well the atonement I was giving him the opportunity to make in lieu of the death he should have been facing for his sins.  
  
As for this more distant presence--the one Ashara still sensed--time could well be running out. Though we knew not whether it originated with the Empire or the Republic, I knew Ashara well enough to know what she was going to say. So despite my weariness, I saved her the trouble of asking. "I'll go with you to find whoever this is. You needn't go it alone."  
  
Ashara favored me with a quick hug. "Thanks, Tarssus."  
  
I smiled, though amidst the fiery fields of Oricon, it could not last. "Lead the way."  
  
  
  
We were not alone. Even I was beginning to sense that now as we traversed the no-man's-land between the Imperial and Republic encampments. It was not simply the presence we had pursued across the wasted landscape. Another energy source was growing in the Force as well. There seemed something a bit familiar about it to me, but I could not place it from here, nor even distinguish whether it emanated from a person, persons, or some other phenomenon that roamed the surface of Oricon.  
  
Suddenly Ashara's hand latched onto my upper arm, tugging me to a halt. "It's the Jedi!" she hissed, her eyes wide with...after all we had endured at the hands of the Dread Masters, I would not call it _fear_. But trepidation? Certainly.  
  
This was not a battle either of us wanted. Yet for all the Jedi proclaimed themselves to be agents of peace, they had proven their lofty words to be a lie far too often when they caught sight of the wrong robes and sabers. Nomar Organa had turned to brazen deception not just of me, but of the woman who had loved him, solely to position himself for a chance to kill me. And I had heard from the Emperor's Wrath about the vengeful Nomen Karr who had proclaimed himself above the very Darkness that he had bred within him.  
  
And finally...most painfully of all to me, there had been Ashara's former masters, Ryen and Ocera. They had refused to hear my entreaties to parlay with them on Taris and had--just like Organa before them--gone on the offensive and refused to back down even when I initially tried to rebuff their attack with the sort of nonlethal techniques I had once been given to understand they prided themselves on. Pride indeed. The sin of the Sith, or so they said.  
  
But whatever had driven them to press their battle to the death, it stung nonetheless, especially in the presence of the Togruta woman that I now loved. She knew how it grieved me. And she had faced the same disdain from her former Order for herself since donning the robes of a Sith apprentice. She understood now that I had acted solely in defense, that her former Masters had been imperfect after all, and their error fatal. But grief knew no rationality. And I held no expectation that it should. We both felt it, in our own ways.  
  
Ashara closed her eyes, extending her senses beyond the rocks. "It's him," she muttered. "Iru Lhis--the Hero of Tython. And his, ah...Padawan, Kira Carsen." Ashara had caught herself about to say 'apprentice' after the way of the Sith. "They have to know we're here. They're turning our way."  
  
I tensed. A Dark Councillor and the most powerful warrior of the Jedi Order...we had fought together against the Dread Masters, the big, grey, spotted Cathar drawing the worst of their ire and absorbing incredible amounts of punishment while I laid into the traitors with barrage after barrage of Force Lightning and our apprentices with their sabers. That had been in the Dread Masters' stronghold. A truce technically still held on Oricon for the duration of the cleanup--but I knew the dangers of relying on a technicality. "Let them come to us," I said, hoping that _these_ Jedi, having fought side-by-side with us, would comprehend.  
  
Ashara nodded her approval. Still, the furrows upon her visage betrayed her unease past and present.  
  
It wasn't long before we caught sight of the opposing duo: a caped Cathar Jedi in resplendent battle armor in hues of blue that looked more like the regalia of a Sith Warrior than a Jedi Knight, and a deep-hued human woman in robes of autumnal golds and browns. " _Imperius!_ " boomed the Cathar--Iru Lhis, the Hero of Tython. " _Halt right there--you are entering Republic territory!_ "  
  
I bit back the retort that this was _not_ in any way, shape, or form _Republic_ territory, even though we had permitted their strike force when it became clear we were in danger of losing everything to the Dread Masters. This was not the time for that, not yet. At least Lhis wasn't pretending some sort of false peace, I thought to myself as Ashara and I stood our ground, waiting for the Jedi to come into range. I felt an electrical charge start to course its way up and down my body, too faint as yet to be seen, but on the ready nonetheless. "You've come awfully close to our emplacements yourselves," I replied in a voice several tones quieter than the Jedi Knight, forcing him to prick up his pointed ears to catch my words. "I might ask what it is that brings the two of _you_ here."  
  
"Fair enough," Lhis growled as he closed the distance. His hand rested on the hilt of his lightsaber--a beastly purple-bladed broadsword with two exhaust ports protruding from just above the grip. Still, he had not ignited it, so I counted that a temporary victory of sorts.  
  
His Padawan stared with dark, wary eyes at my beloved. I had some indication of why: if the Empire's intelligence was right, Carsen had been born Sith, and targeted from childhood to become one of the Emperor's Children--one of his personal mind-slaves. She had fled to the Republic, she had broken the Emperor's hold somehow...given that, it wasn't exactly difficult to understand exactly what I, and especially Ashara, represented to her.  
  
"So...Master Lhis," I began, "what _does_ bring you here?"  
  
"We've picked up a source of power in the Force," the Cathar Knight said. "Powerful--but tormented. Hopeless. One of the victims of the Dread Masters, it seems."  
  
Carsen's brown eyes practically blazed. "Why'd you break them out, anyway?" she seethed even as Master Lhis set a large, furred hand on her shoulder in hopes of settling the human. "There really is no limit to how low you guys will go, is there?"  
  
I released a long sigh as Master Lhis eyed me warily for some other sort of reaction. "Believe it or not," I answered, keeping my voice low, "not all of us were in favor of their tactics, even before all of this. I, for one, have no desire to see the price of victory be all of us _enslaved_ from the inside out. Not that I suppose it makes much difference from your perspective, but Darth Jadus was a fool to think that price was worth it. He was over Imperial Intelligence at the time; he ordered their release. And now the Council has sent _me_ to clean up his mess."  
  
"That's a mild term for it," Master Lhis grumbled.  
  
"Isn't _any_ term?" I quietly retorted.  
  
The Jedi Knight crossed his arms. "Rmrrrph. Point taken." A Jedi concession, however slight--and still no sabers drawn. This was going encouragingly well.  
  
"I'm just glad we know for sure they're gone now," Ashara said. "Some people _really_ do not need to be left around for a second chance. And by the way, we wrecked all their tech, too. That stuff is _never_ getting off Oricon again, except as dust."  
  
"Well!" chuffed Master Lhis. " _That_ is certainly excellent news. We'll hold you to that. And I can't say I miss the Dread Masters, either."  
  
Now _that_ was an interesting remark coming from a Jedi--had I just heard him suggest he was pleased at having helped to strike the Dread Masters dead? That was certainly a long shot more pragmatic than I usually heard from their pseudo-pacifistic Order. "It seems the four of us have something to agree upon, then."  
  
"Feels kind of wrong," Carsen mumbled.  
  
"Nonetheless," I said, "there it is."  
  
"Which is all very interesting," the Cathar Jedi noted, "but that still leaves the question of exactly what _you're_ doing here, Imperius."  
  
I met Master Lhis' gold-brown eyes. "For the same reason as you...to find whatever it is that's moving about out there. And if we find it's one of our own, to help them and bring them home."  
  
"Hm." Like her Jedi Master, Kira Carsen folded her arms over her robe. "I'm, pretty sure it's a Force-user, to be putting out that kind of energy. Most Sith I've known would abandon their own without a single shred of remorse. One less competitor--one less weakling in your way. And yet they let you on the Dark Council."  
  
I couldn't allow them to suspect--not fully, at least, and certainly not yet, when I had yet to see how far their temperance with us would extend. So I settled for saying, "Make no mistake, I was not _let_ anywhere. I _fought_ my way onto the Council--I proved myself through combat. But I also saw that there are advantages to leaving oneself a firm foundation to stand on...not _every_ dispute has to come to violence. And I have _also_ seen the advantages to keeping an eye out for the good of the Empire. Those are considerable."  
  
"Explains your name there," Carsen quipped.  
  
I nodded. "I expect it does." That said, I was a Dark Councillor in his own territory--I outranked the Jedi Master, who not only answered to his Council, but also to the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, who sat above even the Jedi Council. I had to seize the initiative. "So--here are my terms, Master Lhis. In the interests of expediting the wrap-up on Oricon, and seeing your orderly departure from Imperial space, my apprentice and I will accompany the two of you in search of this disturbance we have detected in the Force. If the source does not pose the four of us a threat, then we will see whose warrior it is. There will be no taking of prisoners. Whoever it is, they return with their people."  
  
The Cathar Knight sized Ashara and me up one more time. Then he announced his decision. "Darth Imperius--we have a deal."  
  
"Very well, then. Let us be on our way." Out the corner of my eye, I watched for Ashara to take the first step, though I did not turn my head--I had no wish for either the Cathar Jedi or the human Padawan to realize the difference in our Force senses.  
  
Iru Lhis' Padawan, the former Sith acolyte, took the lead as well. I caught a fierce glint in her eye as she looked to my apprentice--the same sort I had seen before, when she had challenged me about the release of the Dread Masters. I wasn't sure I liked the look in Carsen's eyes, so I quickened my pace to pull alongside Ashara. It wasn't long before the human woman broke her silence. " _Why_ did you betray the Jedi, Zavros?"  
  
"Could we please _not_ go there?" Ashara fired back at the same time as Master Lhis rumbled, "Kira, calm yourself--"  
  
But Carsen forged ahead anyway. "I get being born in the Empire. I sort of get not knowing any better, though that only covers so much. But you _knew_ the Light, Zavros, and you turned on your Masters and went Sith!"  
  
"Stop this _at once_!" I snapped at the Padawan, and _everyone_ fell silent. "We are _not_ going to sabotage our truce over this sort of petty bickering! And furthermore, Carsen, if you must know--Ashara had _nothing_ to do with their deaths. She had no part in it... _I_ was the one they went after, and I couldn't find a way to stop it. If you want to blame someone for that, blame _me_!" I pressed my hand to my chest as, for just an instant, my voice caught. "Not her!"  
  
Carsen simply froze, and stared. Even the Hero of Tython fell into saucer-eyed silence. Ashara drew closer to my side, her eyes averted from the Jedi. Bloody hell, but I could _feel_ her anguish. I could _feel_ her shudder, even without direct contact.  
  
"Imperius is right," Master Lhis admitted after several tense seconds. "I'm sorry, Kira. We have a mission."  
  
We resumed our trek across the scarred landscape of Oricon. Ashara worked her way around to my other side, not quite going so far as to snake her arm around my waist, but I could feel her anchoring herself on her sense of my presence. I couldn't help but notice a striking parallel to the other side of me--Iru Lhis next to me, Kira Carsen at his left. I couldn't catch a clear glimpse of the Padawan, but at this proximity, one thing was clear even to me: there was _very_ little separation between her Force aura and his.  
  
The silence only broke when Ashara pointed at a silhouetted figure off in the distance. "There--it's him! He's the one I've been sensing!"  
  
Carsen, all business now, nodded. "Me too," she concurred.  
  
Master Lhis glanced over at me. "I suggest we put a little distance between us, give us a chance to go towards his people. Whoever they are."  
  
I nodded my agreement; Ashara and I drifted a bit further towards the right--Lhis and Carsen to the left.  
  
I would never be sure who it was that identified the tormented being first. Who it was that first picked out the pattern of the maskless man's robes, who first realized that the wanderer was no mere minion of the Dread Host. Nor would I know whose saber it was that ignited first--only that in the blink of an eye, a spectrum of fire had erupted on the Oriconian stone. A staff in gold: Kira Carsen. A longsword in purple: Iru Lhis. Dual sabers in sky-blue: Ashara. And a single crimson blade...my own.  
  
" _Halt right there!_ " barked Master Lhis, reaching out with clawed hand and Force, locking the wanderer's body into place to make absolutely sure. Once we drew close, the big Cathar bared his fangs. The fur of his mane stood on end. "Dread Master," he growled.  
  
The man before us now clutched at a wound in his side--a wound that any of the four of us might have been the one to deal him. He was white-haired and balding, his tan skin weathered, his body was stooped...frail...old. Unarmed. "They're gone now," he rasped. I flinched instinctively at first: this was one of the voices that had tormented us all during our time on the battlefields of Oricon. That had haunted my sleep even after the battle was over. I recognized it intimately. There it was, but reduced to naught but a desiccated whisper. "And I remember now...not being afraid."  
  
No one moved--neither to strike, nor to stand down. He spoke again, staring out from wide, weary brown eyes. "My death never came...I am nothing."  
  
"We have to take him out, Master," Lhis' Padawan urged. "He's vulnerable--we can do it, if we don't wait!"  
  
"We made a really huge mistake the last time," Ashara added, more measured than Kira Carsen, but still gravely concerned. "The Republic, I mean, back when they caught the Dread Masters. Yeah, there's only one of them left now, but he knows how to do all this again. It's too dangerous to let that happen."  
  
The Hero of Tython turned to his Padawan. "You know I am not one for foolish risks, Kira. That's why I've bound him. And if I do feel his power building up against us, I'm not above taking him out. But he's wounded. And he _is_ the source of all the mental anguish we've sensed. I want to at least hear what he has to say before we make a decision. Assuming that suits our 'friend' the Dark Councillor here."  
  
"You're a more pragmatic sort than I'm accustomed to, Master Lhis." Not that I imagined he'd receive that as a compliment considering its source, but the truth was, I meant it. "Not many Jedi would reserve the option. To be sure, I take my apprentice's concerns most seriously indeed. That said...I am not one for uninformed decisions. There is more we need to understand here. For one thing, I should not like to strike him down without knowing whether doing so might turn the powers he wielded loose without direction. Even after destroying their machines, that is something we must know."  
  
"Seems I'm not the only pragmatist here," the big Cathar remarked. "It's not every Sith who has the temperance to look at the big picture."  
  
The wounded Dread Master, for his part, had held his hollow silence while we debated his immediate fate. Our eyes turned to the old man again, and I saw the fur of Master Lhis' mane began to lay back down, and he hid his fangs. Though he did not yet loosen his Force grip on the man's body, he sheathed his weapon. Carsen, Ashara, and I followed suit a reluctant several seconds later.  
  
"Surely you have a name," Master Lhis said to the Dread Master.  
  
"Calphayus," the old man replied in tremulous tones. "I was once the Prophet of the Dread Masters. If I had a name before that...it's lost to me now."  
  
"I see." The Hero of Tython nodded. "Calphayus, then. And Imperius has a good question. Are you still connected to any of your technology? And if your wounds are mortal—what happens? Is there still any risk"  
  
Calphayus shook his head. "N-no. Not anymore. I know how it felt then, when the six of us were bound together. We were a living embodiment of terror and madness. The fear gave us rage. The pain gave us strength." His dark brown eyes grew even more hollow and distant...yet also plaintive. "We were chained to one another, enslaved with higher purpose. How can a man walk without chains to uplift him? How do you endure?"  
  
He spoke of higher purpose. But what I saw in those desolate black holes of eyes told the tale of anything but. What _I_ saw was merely slavery--a look I had seen all too many times. The more I looked at Calphayus, and his frail body, the more he resembled a defeated, expended slave. And though my father had been far, far more noble of a man than this one...I saw in the former Dread Master's weathered skin an echo of how the sun had ravaged my father's skin and finally turned it traitor against him until it killed him.  
  
Perhaps it was that distant echo of my departed father that moved my soul to speak the next words. I felt my own features soften ever so slightly as I regarded Calphayus and I gently asked, "Do you remember the Sith Code, Calphayus? Do you remember how it ends?"  
  
"Perhaps," Calphayus muttered.  
  
"'Through victory, my chains are broken.' Do you remember now?" I asked. "Try to recite with me. 'Through victory, my chains are broken...the Force shall free me.'" When the defeated Dread Master's faint voice fell silent, I told him, "You will know you have found the right passions when they liberate you instead of confining you." I could feel the eyes of the two Jedi upon me as well. Perhaps they feared how I, a Dark Lord of the Sith, would lead Calphayus astray. Yet they held their silence. "That is how I know."  
  
Calphayus squinted at my features. "I know you now...Imperius. You are the enigma." My blood ran cold with the echoes of my nightmares. _Their_ nightmares. Yet this time--when I forced myself to listen, though the words were similar, the man's voice was devoid of menace. "I witnessed your hopes. We struck at them. Yet they are not destroyed, not now. I have lived for...so many centuries. You are young...yet wiser than I ever was."  
  
"Now what?" Ashara asked after another moment of somber reflection, giving voice to what all of us had to be thinking.  
  
Our options had seemed so clear before this: put down the threat if it was a threat...bring the wounded to their home for treatment, if they could be saved. Now, though--this man had quite literally become a victim of his own devices. And all that was left now was...not menace, but suffering without any vision to an end. No...there was one path I supposed Calphayus could still envision. To many a Sith Lord, to oversee a suicide would constitute the sweetest revenge over a defeated enemy--the ultimate destruction of the fallen foe's spirit. But for me...I felt no joy in that. Only heaviness of heart.  
  
"I am aware of...certain contacts in the Empire who might be trusted with this," I noted. And if what Rûmaz had told me still held true, that could even include someone with the ability to teach. Someone who might be able to effect the lasting sort of healing. Then my shoulders sagged. "But the Emperor and his closest servants could recognize him." I meant that for the Emperor, wherever he had got off to, and his Hands--but I allowed my phrasing to disguise Rûmaz as well. "Even if we gave him a new identity, placed him under someone who could work with him...an old man does not survive as an acolyte or an apprentice. As much as it galls me to suggest it, the only option I can see if he is to live is for him to go with you."  
  
"Heh. It _galls_ you?" Kira Carsen remarked. But there wasn't as much heart in it as there had been before.  
  
I nodded. My countenance was solemn as I gave my reply. "The thought of substituting one form of inner destruction for another...yes. It does. But I see no alternative. The Jedi Order has healers. And they can do so openly."  
  
The Hero of Tython nodded--but I saw none of the arrogance in his felinoid features that I had seen in Nomar Organa. "One thing you should know, Imperius...there are degrees of austerity in the interpretation of the Jedi Code. I am not Master Korri, the Barsen'thor--the Warden of the Order. I can't say what the Council... _our_ Council," he specified with the faintest shadow of a smile, "will decide for Calphayus. But if a case can be made that numbness poses him the greatest risk--then he may be placed under someone who understands peace in a slightly more active sense than some."  
  
The eyes of the bewildered Dread Master darted between Sith and Jedi. "Why would you do this?" he asked. "Even the Light must have limits."  
  
With that, Master Lhis relaxed his Force hold on Calphayus--some, but not completely. "I have never been one to believe following the Light means being a blind fool," the Cathar Jedi said. "That much is true. But I am not acting without evidence. I can sense what has changed in you. And odd as it is for me to be saying this...it seems apparent to these Sith as well."  
  
I offered no direct confirmation to Lhis. Instead I said, "I suppose you'll be taking him then."  
  
The Jedi Master looked to Calphayus. "We'll keep a moderate pace. You'll find if you lean on the Force I have placed around you, it will act as your support, not just a simple harness..."  
  
"Wait, Master Lhis. Please." For just a moment, some vestige of the former Dread Master's authority returned. Then it faded as if the momentary effort had expended his final reserves.  
  
The Hero of Tython paused, wary. "What is it?"  
  
"I have something to tell them. Something the Sith need to know."  
  
Master Lhis fixed Calphayus with an unblinking gaze. "You understand why we can't let you do that alone. Whatever you say, you say it in front of us."  
  
Calphayus' only response to the silver-spotted Cathar was an acquiescent nod. Then he turned his head towards me, regarding me with plaintive features. "Imperius...let me tell you of my last true vision. I saw it as I began to die in the palace. As the light tried to take me. And I saw _you_ there--in the Light. You already reside there, in both worlds. In the Light."  
  
_Be silent!_ I wanted to shout--for the former Dread Master had just announced my secret, my heresy, right in front of one of the Republic's most powerful Jedi, who happened to be staring right at me, in total shock. If that intelligence started to travel up Master Lhis' chain of command, it would soon find its way to _our_ spies. And I would be destroyed. Yet I held my tongue. Dangerous though it was, I felt something...sacred, almost, in this moment.  
  
"But the future I saw..." Calphayus continued, "...it was in motion. You have trials ahead of you--grave ones. Of that much I am certain. But I saw two ways in which they might end. One in which you and her--Ashara--are crushed separately, alone and choked by despair. And one in which you stand strong...not always in body together, but in spirit. And because of that--you will not be defeated.  
  
"Please--Ashara. Imperius. Listen to me, I implore you. For I will not have long left to me, no matter what healing may come. And I know this. The Light will take me again, and I will not return. It may be a few months, it may be a few years. But I will not live to see the day of your truest trials...this is my only chance to take this one fear and lift it away. I had a wife once, you see. I didn't fear her. Only now do I understand the strength and passion I sacrificed. Master Lhis and Kira Carsen understand this, and that will give them the power to endure. Do not make my mistake, Ashara. Do not make my mistake, Imperius. Do not reject such power, such beauty. Become husband and wife, without fear. For this, and this alone, will abide."  
  
For the first moment after Calphayus finished what I suspected would be his final prophecy, Iru Lhis and Kira Carsen simply stared, just as they had when I had sprung to Ashara's defense. It was the human Padawan who broke the silence this time. And the wonderment in her voice was nothing like I had heard from her before—for all the bluster was gone. "By the Force..." she breathed. "Darth Imperius, are you following the _Light_?"  
  
I felt Ashara tense at my side. Master Lhis' gold-eyed gaze bore down on me as well, awaiting an answer. And then there was Calphayus himself, his tired, troubled brown eyes locked on me waiting for what--I had no idea. Finally, I straightened, set my hand on Ashara's shoulder, drawing upon her warmth and her strength. And I nodded. "You _must not_ speak of this with _anyone_. Not you, Calphayus, nor Lhis, nor Carsen--do you understand the gravity of this? I would immediately be marked for death for my heresy, and if you think there is any advantage to you for knowing this, you _will_ lose it, and I am absolutely _certain_ I would not be the only one to die. My people would suffer, and so would yours. But yes. Not as your Order sees it, I'm sure. But I do walk in the Light."  
  
"This is extraordinary." The Cathar Jedi Master chuffed and shook his head in amazement. "I should have known there was a reason we fought so well together."  
  
As for Kira Carsen...to my own astonishment, the young woman's dark eyes were glistening. She sniffed back hard, closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath. Then she took a step towards Ashara. "I'm sorry about earlier, Ash--ah... _Apprentice_ Zavros. I misjudged you. And Imperius. I was so sure I knew what happened on Taris. Now--I have to admit it. I _don't_ understand. I _don't_ know. Something must have gone badly wrong...I don't know what it was. Why it had to come down to a fight. But when I look at _him_ now, and I think what it must have been like for you to see what you saw...I just don't know anymore, Apprentice. I'm really sorry."  
  
Ashara managed a shaky smile at her human counterpart. "It's all right. Who knows--maybe we could have been on the same side somehow. Officially...whichever side that wound up being."  
  
"I guess we kind of are still on the same side, in a way," Carsen offered. Then she turned her vulnerable countenance to me. "And you, sir--I just couldn't think it, after everything I went through back in what...what used to be home. After what the Emperor did to me, and all it took to get him out of my head...all I could think was that only the most disgusting kind of person could ever survive long enough to become a Sith. Or that if they had any kind of good in them, any kind of basic integrity, they'd get out of the Empire and go to the Jedi like I did. I didn't know there could ever be anyone like you, Imperius. Someone who could be a Sith, and could be...I don't even need to say 'Light.' I didn't know there could even be a Sith who was _good_."  
  
I gave her a solemn bow of the head. "I thank you for that...though I have certainly done many things that you might not call good. And some that _I_ would not call good." I dared not go so far as to directly criticize the Emperor--no matter how much I _burned_ to do so for her sake. But I hoped she would still understand. "But I do want you to know something: that for me, there are few things more precious than the freedom of the mind, and nothing I abhor more than to steal it away."  
  
Kira Carsen met my eyes and favored me with a slow, deliberate nod whose meaning was readily apparent to me: _I understand._ I could still read the anguish in her eyes from the memories. But ever so slightly, the corners of her lips still twitched upwards. And Master Lhis drew close to her--not as if to shield her from me, but in a gesture of affirmation and warmth that bore a striking familiarity to me.  
  
"I wonder..." I glanced back at Calphayus for a moment. "Pardon the intrusion, but I find myself thinking back to something Calphayus said. Am I understanding correctly that the two of you are in a relationship? Mind you, coming from a Sith Lord, you oughtn't take umbrage at that."  
  
Iru Lhis aimed a fierce gaze at me, though his eyes, at least, betrayed a certain softness. "We are husband and wife. And yes...before you ask, the Jedi Council knows about it. But they have forbidden us from going public with it. We have to consider public sentiment in the Republic...and if the word were to get out that the Jedi Council tried to forbid the 'Hero of Tython' to marry, it could call a lot of attention to policies the Council _really_ doesn't want in the public eye during a time of war with the Sith Empire. If the public starts doubting the Jedi Order, if they start thinking the Sith might be right in _anything_..."  
  
I nodded. "I can appreciate the consternation that would cause. While you don't rule your people, you cannot deny that your Order has predicated a great deal of its power and influence on a certain image of holiness. You may not demand worship as my ancestors did--but the Jedi as a whole _accept_ it after a fashion, nonetheless. Even if it didn't bring your people onto the side of the Sith, the disunity and the damage to morale _would_ have an impact. And I have no doubt that _my_ Order would jump in to fuel the fire however they could. It seems Calphayus has maintained the balance between us with his final prophecy."  
  
Master Lhis folded his arms over his chest. "Then we guard each other's secrets..."  
  
"So we shall," I declared. We did not shake hands on it. But the deal was done nonetheless.  
  
Before we could try once more to turn away, Lhis' student piped up. "Can I ask you one more thing, sir?"  
  
"Very well."  
  
"I'm not doubting you or anything, I swear. There's just something I don't understand. You really do believe in it, don't you?" she probed. "Being Sith...the Code and everything. I guess I just kind of want to understand that before we go."  
  
In the young woman's richly-hued features I beheld something much more than mere curiosity. I could pick up on her yearning through the Force from such immediate range. And I found myself wondering if it was a mere point of philosophy she sought to understand--or something more: that part of her, perhaps, that still felt the connection to the Empire, the place of her birth, and the place that she had once thought of as home. That remembered what it was to have aspired to become Sith, and wondered, I suspected, at the sort of woman she might have become had she remained. Had the Emperor not selected _her_ to become one of his mind-enslaved Children.  
  
"I do," I replied. "I truly, sincerely do. I know what we face as an Order...you understand I am far from blind to it. But I believe wholeheartedly in our right to exist apart from you and to find our own way, without surrendering to the Jedi and being absorbed. I _cannot_ believe in your Code. I _cannot_ bear to think what it would do to the Force-sensitive children of a fallen Empire to be condemned to such an austere and regimented fate. If anyone ever seeks the fundamentals of your Code...that's the only choice they are left with. But as Sith...if you discard the commentaries and the traditions--there are so many things that passion can be. So many ways that strength and power can be exercised, and that victory can be achieved. And freedom...that is so eminently worth it to me. Does that help you to understand?"  
  
"I don't know that we'll ever agree on everything," Carsen replied. "It's still hard to imagine, after everything...how it could be worth that kind of a risk. But yeah..." The young woman inclined her head towards me in a gesture reminiscent of the one a junior Sith Lord might offer to her senior. Reminiscent--but not quite. "That does help me understand at least a little."  
  
And that, I knew, was more than I could ever hope to ask for. "Master Lhis. Carsen. If we should meet again," I said, "perhaps it could be for another opportunity like this. Though I should _not_ care to return to Oricon-- _ever_." I drew myself up to my full height and glared at the two Jedi Knights. "And on an official note, I must remind you again that you _are_ on Imperial soil at our sufferance, and we expect your withdrawal to be expedient and orderly."  
  
"Messages received loud and clear," the Hero of Tython acknowledged. He did not salute, but still the big Cathar straightened and stood as if at attention.  
  
Master Lhis turned once more to Calphayus, who had been listening to the whole exchange in a weary, but rapt silence. Perhaps, I allowed myself to hope, there might be some sliver of it that the former Dread Master might carry away, that could help to bring the hope and healing to his soul that he so desperately sought. "It's time," Lhis told his...not prisoner, I thought, but perhaps asylum seeker. "I'll keep you steady for now, but we've got a long path ahead of us."  
  
Ashara and I stood watch as the two Jedi retreated with their charge into the distance across the desolate Oriconian landscape in search of something more than what had come before.  
  
As for us--once our official adversaries had faded from sight, we both reached for each other without a single word spoken, and pulled each other tight, side by side.  
  
  
  
As the music wound to a close in my meditation chamber aboard the _Fury_ , my lightning faded, and my robes settled into stillness around me, I finally felt myself more at rest than I had been since the end of the Dread War. And not in the least because I could sense Ashara's presence hovering not far from the chamber's entrance. We had sparred together in here many a time. But this was not one of Ashara's scheduled sessions. Nor had she come to meditate after me--for that, my beloved apprentice practiced alone in her quarters. This, therefore, had to be something else.  
  
I unfroze from the final pose of my meditative dance, turning to the entrance as Ashara keyed the entry code and the door slid open. Only she and Talos held that privilege, to enter any closed space with me on the strength of their code alone. Time and time over, she had rewarded me for my trust...and all the more so over the days of our ordeal on Oricon.  
  
"Good evening, Ashara," I greeted my beloved with a ready smile. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"  
  
The delightful Togruta favored me with a bashful smile of her own. "I think...I'd like to learn how to do that."  
  
Carefully testing the waters, I asked, "The dancing? I'd be pleased to teach you, though you might have to adapt some of the moves to suit you--"  
  
"Not exactly..." My heart leapt within me. Could it be? "Your lightning," she said. "I'd like to see if I can learn how to do that."  
  
"Ahh, how wonderful!" I cheered as if I were once more a child being shown the blooming of the monsoon-rose for the very first time. Until now, my beloved had shown not even the slightest willingness to learn this skill, which the Jedi Order held as anathema. "Of course...it would be my pleasure to teach you."  
  
Then I schooled myself to something much closer to the seriousness of an instructor...though I was sure there was no way I could completely eliminate the sparkle in my eye.  
  
"There is perhaps no ability that expresses the passion of the Sith in purer fashion than the power of Force Lightning," I began. "It requires nothing less than asserting direct command over the Force and conforming its outpouring to your will. Passivity and submission to the Force will prevent its generation. That said, not every Sith Lord manages to command it, and not all who do develop it sufficiently to rely upon it in combat. Only the worst fool of a Sith would dare dismiss his opponent for relying on the saber, or other powers. Our Emperor's own Wrath has never commanded lightning on the battlefield in _any_ report the Dark Council has ever received. While I cannot imagine it ever happening, I have no doubt the two of us would be evenly matched if we ever fought each other at our full strengths.  
  
"It is commonly believed by many Sith that the only passions capable of sustaining lightning powerful enough to wield in battle are rage and hate. They very much can, and they do. The first time I summoned lightning, there was certainly anger, and there was fear as well...but I felt those things because I was deathly afraid I was about to see an innocent girl snatched away by an aeroraptor and I so desperately did _not_ want to see that happen to her. Over time I have learnt to control my lightning--to target it where it needs to go and to manage the duration and intensity to where it can kill, or it can simply stun. I know you've seen all of that.  
  
"But I strongly suspect you sussed out a long time ago the fact that there are other passions that can be harnessed and channeled into Force Lightning powerful enough to serve you in battle. Longing...sorrow...joy...and even compassion and love for others--I have found that contrary to what the great majority of Sith believe, _and_ , I suspect, nearly every Jedi, the embrace and the outpouring of these emotions _can_ give one the spark that Force Lightning needs to get started. Sometimes that causes the colors of my lightning to shift--though not always. Whether you're successful at any time, or not, this is a significant step into a Sith Lord's way of bending the Force to his...or her...service. While I can't imagine any but a heretic Overseer would dare teach the power of lightning in this way, my suggestion to you would be to try harnessing one of those...'alternative' passions, something that you've developed a greater comfort with.  
  
"Like _this_ \--" I closed my eyes, channeling my elation in the moment--this high privilege of guiding the woman I loved through this critical exercise. My gratitude for her trust. My joy in her bravery. My hope that it would all continue to blossom...this hope given greater strength of late by none other than the one who once sought to destroy it in me--Calphayus, the former Dread Master himself.  
  
Joy multiplied upon joy, and I opened my eyes as I extended my hands, gathering the energy between them into a ball of golden plasma until, with a step and a shove, I thrust the orb outward until it transformed into a bolt that crashed against the specially-reinforced wall of the meditation chamber.  
  
"You see?" I turned to her, still grinning from ear to ear. "It can be done."  
  
Ashara couldn't restrain her own smile. And needless to say, this was the _last_ time in which I wanted her to. "I could sense it so clearly from you," she marveled.  
  
"Now to be sure," I reminded her, "I would never expect that sort of display from you. But do you feel ready to try? We'll only continue this if you are certain this is what you want."  
  
She drew in a deep breath, then released it through her nose. "I'm ready."  
  
"Have you got what you intend to draw upon in mind?"  
  
Ashara nodded.  
  
I smiled. "In your heart?"  
  
My beloved nodded once more.  
  
"Then we shall begin."  
  
Ashara closed her eyes. Though she had extended her hand before her, Ashara was starting, it seemed, to slip into her accustomed meditative trance on her feet. Her breathing began to slow. I could not allow that now. "Hold on to the feeling," I urged her. "Immerse yourself fully in it. Strengthen it. Don't let it wane."  
  
There--that restored her breathing to normal, at least. A smile traced across her face...an indulgence she would never have allowed under Jedi practice. I felt the emotion catch light like a candle within her.  
  
"That's good...I love it," I encouraged her, meaning every word of it. Ashara's smile broadened into a grin, though still I sensed _something_ in her holding back. "Release your fear of the power consuming you or corrupting you somehow. You know you're safe with this. You've seen proof. It has no more power to corrupt you than you _choose_ to allow it.  
  
"Now imagine your passion coursing through your entire body," I continued. Had I imagined it, or had the faintest of sparks arced its way through the air between her montrals? I did not dare voice that observation and shatter the moment or give quarter to any lingering doubts. She had told me she wanted this. I believed her. And I would give her everything I could to allow her a chance. "If you want to move, go on."  
  
Ashara began to sway slowly back and forth, her eyes still closed. Sparks danced now upon her fingertips--one by one at first, then in pairs or trios.  
  
"You needn't fear hitting me," I assured her. "I can move away or absorb it if need be. You _will not_ hurt me--I promise."  
  
The sparks flitted back and forth now faster and more numerous than my eye could see. Suddenly they started to coalesce--a tiny, flickering ball took shape at the tip of her index finger--  
  
"Reach your mind forward... _step into it--now--now--NOW!_ "  
  
Her eyes flew open. She stepped forward--thrust her hand further as if reaching for the opposite wall with her fingertips--  
  
A thin yellow bolt leapt forth from her fingertip and barely, just barely, grazed the far wall.  
  
I couldn't help myself--my own passion swelled forth. "Ashara! You did it!" I grinned so fiercely that my ears began to ache, pushed forward, and drew her into my embrace and squeezed her tight. "That was outstanding! You did it!"  
  
I let go, stepped back to let her breathe, gazed adoringly into her hazel eyes. "And if I'm not mistaken," I said, "that had the look...and feel...of joy."  
  
"And love," Ashara added, returning my stare with an absolutely unabashed one of her own. "Tarssus, there's something I really have to say to you."  
  
My breath caught. My eyes went wide. And I said, "You have my undivided attention."  
  
"I know how long it's been." Ashara wrung her fingers, glanced to the deck as she began to speak. "I know how long I've made you wait. And the more I've loved you...the more I've felt how much it hurt you, to know that I was waiting for the Jedi Council to give us--really, to give _me_ \--their blessing. And now--we're really, truly at war with the Republic.  
  
"Now...I've seen how they treated their great Hero, how he practically had to twist their arms into it. And that was for two Jedi. Oh, Force...I don't know if I _ever_ really believed they'd say 'yes.' And I think now...I think Calphayus was right. I was afraid. I told you that because I've been afraid all this time, and I've been just as afraid to really let myself recognize that you were suffering because of it. And that you have kept it quiet with me all this time, to try and honor something that now...I don't think I _ever_ should have forced you to accept.  
  
"I am so sorry, Tarssus." Tears pooled in my beloved's eyes, which she still had yet to lift from the deckplates. "I've been afraid of the Jedi and their definition of Darkness--I've been afraid of _myself_ for so long that I didn't let myself understand that what I was doing to you... _that_ was selfish. And _that_ was really Darkness."  
  
"Oh, my love..." My voice shuddered as a burden lifted away, as I fought a losing battle against my own tears. "It's all right--it's all right...I forgive you." That did it--my eyes overflowed as finally, I felt the salve of absolute, unreserved warmth radiating forth from her and onto my soul. But mixed into it, I could feel _her_ anguish.  
  
"Please, look into my eyes..." Slowly, Ashara raised her chin, met my gaze. "I forgive you, Ashara. I mean that. I have forgiven you. Can you begin to forgive yourself?"  
  
She managed a wobbly smile. "Y-yeah. Yeah--I'll try my best. I promise. I think there's something I can do. Something that might help us both..."  
  
Oh, by all the stars of the galaxy--could this truly be happening? "If you're certain," I said once more, just as I had with the lightning. "If what you're about to say is what you are absolutely sure that you are going to continue wanting forever."  
  
"It is. It really is--I'm sure." Ashara beamed through her tears now. "Tarssus Kallig...Sith Lord, and beloved of my heart, after all of this--will you still marry me?"  
  
"Of course." I pulled her tight into my caress, not daring to let go. "There is nothing in the entire galaxy that could make me happier."  
  
"Then that's really it," Ashara whispered, half to herself. "We're really engaged."  
  
I beamed as I released her. "Yes, Ashara. We are."  
  
My mind spun into hyperdrive as the reality sank in, that the long interdiction was finally lifted. "There won't be a grand ceremony, even in the Empire," I said. "But there _is_ still our crew. And a few other good people I'll want to inform. Kenosa and Rajjar...maybe even Moff Drellik, and Rûmaz, to name a few. And I'm thinking-- _how_ will we tell them—what to call _you_.  
  
"I could declare you Lord Zavros at any time," I rattled on. "Or Lord Ashara if you should prefer. And it could help to make your life a bit easier in the Empire to be a full Lord of the Sith. But most of all, you have shown me what you are capable of, from the _Kaggath_ to what you did on Oricon. And _especially_ that. Xalek may complain, but warrior that he is, his skill with the Force has not advanced as far as yours. Counting your time studying with the Jedi, you have trained far longer than he has. The fact that you came to me and asked for this lesson today shows me that you are ready. The lordship can be yours, if you want it."  
  
"Baby steps, my adorable lord," Ashara shushed me with a brilliant, beautiful smile, touching her gentle index finger to my lips. "Baby steps..."  
  
I kissed the offered digit in return.  
  
If _these_ were the sorts of baby steps we--my fiancée and I--would now be taking, I could _very_ much live with that.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Soundtrack:** ["T1"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3oVnwrp2oU) by Torqux, ["Amirah"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAbY2TVy7xQ) by Chasing Shadows, ["Sleepless"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2hT7-XVQuQ) by Excision--Xilent Remix, ["Move into Light"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9L3tKe2iYY) by Juventa--Koven Remix, ["More Than You"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cngFaHM0u9w) by Koven, ["Wanna Die for You"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3CqZQwxXVM) by Netsky
> 
>  
> 
>  **An important SWTOR canon note for this story:** A number of things will surely stick out to readers, that are not completely canon. For one, Talos Drellik and Tarssus Kallig have become brothers in this universe. Also, in game, Imperial players do not get the opportunity to be involved in dealing with Calphayus and it is implied to happen immediately after the Dread Masters' defeat, rather than the next day. (IMO it makes more sense for the Dread Executioners to make SURE they have the situation mopped up on Oricon before leaving, and a Light Sith in particular is probably not going to cut loose until he's sure things are well in hand.) Regarding Kira Carsen, a couple more notes...yes, I am describing her according to one of the alternate appearances players can give her in game. As for her being called Padawan at this point in the game...while that started out as an error on my part, I then had a moment of Fridge Genius and realized that Imperius and Ashara were unaware of her promotion. (I've never seen the "Padawan braid" in SWTOR.)
> 
> Oh, and I have a feeling that companions aren't allowed in game to participate in the battle against the Dread Masters. Including them is a total "because I said so" thing on my part. I thought it made the story way better to have them there, on so many levels. (I mean, Ashara and Kira meeting--you HAD to know that was going to be totally awkward...)


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